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When Kim Mi-Young left for hagwon, Kang Chan headed to Seok Kang-Ho’s room.
“I should’ve stayed in this room earlier,” Kang Chan commented.
“Tell me about it. What would you have done if Mi-Young came in while we were smoking?”
Just thinking about it already felt like a hassle.
“Someone else visited you, right?” Seok Kang-Ho asked.
“An actor dropped by. Phew, I should see how things go tomorrow and get discharged.”
“You should stay here with me for one more day.”
Kang Chan couldn’t help but burst into laughter because Seok Kang-Ho spoke as if he was recommending something good.
Soon, they heard the door to Kang Chan’s room being opened.
“It seems like someone’s here,” Seok Kang-Ho said.
“Who could it be?”
As Kang Chan forcibly raised himself up, Kim Hyung-Jung opened the door and entered.
“You’re early,” Kang Chan commented.
“It’s 5 pm. I told everyone that I’m returning your phones to you two as an excuse to leave work. I bought three samgye-tang[1] as take-out from the restaurant in front of our office in case you two were hungry. Anyway, here’s your phone, Mr. Kang Chan, and this one is Mr. Seok Kang-Ho’s.”
Kang Chan shook his head upon receiving his phone. His phone was so full of missed calls and text messages that it felt heavy in his hands.
Without checking any of them, Kang Chan immediately erased the calls and text messages. The three then sat around the table and ate samgye-tang.
It was certainly tastier than the food delivered to them from this neighborhood.
“Phew! I’ll become a pig if I stay at Manager Kim’s office,” Seok Kang-Ho said afterward.
“If you do come, I’ll immediately empty out a room for you.”
“Phuhu, I don’t know what I’d do if you make me sit at a desk all day.”
They ate to their heart's content for the first time in so long.
Since he was the one in the best condition, Kim Hyung-Jung made coffee. Meanwhile, Kang Chan and Seok Kang-Ho cleaned up a bit and threw the trash in the trash can.
Once they were all sitting around the table again, Kang Chan told them what the Serpent Venimeux had told them earlier.
“Ambassador Lanok was the first to make a move, after all,” Kim Hyung-Jung commented.
“Do you have any guesses why he’s doing this?” Kang Chan asked Kim Hyung-Jung.
“I don’t, but he clearly wants something. Isn’t there a saying along the lines of, ‘Give me what I want willingly or else I’ll kill all of you until I get it’?”
“But the ones Lanok is killing don’t know what he wants.”
Kim Hyung-Jung smiled, seemingly finding Kang Chan funny. “Lanok is thinking of killing them by using this matter as an excuse. Doing so hits two birds with one stone—it warns them, and it also allows him to take revenge. Lanok will probably make his demands once his anger subsides to a certain extent. At that point, the Serpent Venimeux will likely give him what he wants without hesitation. But if something similar happens again, I’m not sure. They probably won't ever be able to sell weapons to anything or anyone related to Ambassador Lanok.”
Having heard that, Kang Chan realized Kim Hyung-Jung could be right.
“Ha! That gentleman is scary,” Seok Kang-Ho commented.
“I agree,” Kang Chan also agreed.
“Yang Jin-Woo’s son is indeed in France. He’s managing funds held in offshore accounts, but we still haven’t figured out how much he currently has,” Kim Hyung-Jung explained.
“I was told that he also has sons in the United States,” Kang Chan replied.
“Yang Jin-Woo has six sons.”
“Does he have any daughters?”
“Just one. She’s also in the United States. Oh, his children came from five different mothers.”
At any rate, Yang Jin-Woo was a fucker Kang Chan couldn’t understand at all.
“Anyway, I have passed on your intentions to the director and applied for your passport to be made. We’ll also likely find a way to force Yang Jin-Woo to return to the country soon,” Kim Hyung-Jung added.
“I’m thinking of meeting Lanok sometime tomorrow,” Kang Chan said.
“You’re already being discharged?”
“Yes.”
Seok Kang-Ho looked upset, and Kim Hyung-Jung looked surprised.
In any case, Kang Chan didn’t want to stay at the hospital now that he could already move around.
After talking for about an hour, Kang Chan quickly stood up. He heard someone looking for him from his room.
When he opened the door and went out, he saw the back of Yoo Hye-Sook, who was heading to the nurse’s office.
“Mother!”
“Channy! I was about to go looking for you because you weren’t in your room. Where were you?”
“I was in the room next door because I was bored. You’re here early.”
“I was worried. Anyway, I brought sushi. Your dad bought it from a delicious restaurant. Let’s go inside.”
“Sure.”
Afraid that she would see Seok Kang-Ho’s name on the door beside Kang Chan’s room, Kang Chan quickly looked after Yoo Hye-Sook.
“Look! Doesn’t it look delicious, Channy?” Yoo Hye-Sook asked.
Kang Chan felt as if his stomach was about to burst.
“Quick, take a bite,” Yoo Hye-Sook urged.
“Alright. You should eat as well.”
Kang Chan held up the chopsticks and had a piece of sushi. It was good, but that didn’t mean it would make him hungry.
“What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well?” Looking worried, Yoo Hye-Sook was about to put down her chopsticks.
“That’s not it. I just thought of Father since it tastes amazing.”
“If we eat this, he said he’ll buy chicken when he comes here.”
Theft is never good, try looking at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.
“What?”
“You should eat a lot especially when you’re not feeling good. Your dad is treating us—which he hadn’t done in a long time—so don’t worry and just eat as much as you want.”
How could Kang Chan refuse anything she was cajoling with that kind of expression? Didn’t Kang Dae-Kyung say that she was so worried when the incident happened that she even fainted in front of the TV?
Fine! This will make my mother happy! Since I’m going to eat it anyway, I might as well enjoy it!
Kang Chan thought about confessing that he had samgye-tang, but with a sense of duty, he relentlessly ate sushi. He just kept thinking about Yoo Hye-Sook, who would’ve been disappointed otherwise.
“Wow! This is really good,” Kang Chan commented.
“Since you like it this much, I’ll start buying it for you every now and then.”
Her response instinctively made him shake his head, but he forcibly smiled at her.
It wasn’t like his stomach would explode just because he had a lot of food. If eating with Yoo Hye-Sook would make her that happy, then it would be worth coping with it just this once.
Kang Chan secretly controlled his breathing.
Rattle.
The door soon opened, and Michelle entered the room with a bright expression.
“Welcome, Michelle!” Yoo Hye-Sook greeted.
“Hello, Mother!”
Kang Chan’s heart sank when he noticed the box that Michelle was holding.
“Mother, please have some of this,” Michelle said.
“What’s this?”
“It’s cake and sandwiches.”
“Oh my, that’s very nice of you. It seems like you haven’t had dinner yet
 What should we do? We just ate. We would’ve waited for you had we known that you were coming.”
“Yes, mother.” Michelle looked at Kang Chan, pretending that she couldn’t understand Yoo Hye-Sook when Yoo Hye-Sook said many things at once.
“Aren’t you busy?” Kang Chan interrupted very briefly.
Flustered, Yoo Hye-Sook looked at Kang Chan as well

“Mother, I’ll have a sandwich. You should eat cake,” Michelle suggested.
“You must be smart. How can your Korean improve so fast?”
“Thank you.”
She’s not clever! She’s cunning!
Just as Kang Chan thought, ‘Oh shoot,’ Michelle opened the box.
They made coffee and put cake and sandwiches in front of him.
“Here you go, Channy!”
Kang Chan ate the cake that Yoo Hye-Sook scooped up for him, then sat far away from them using the excuse that he was full.
As if she was proving how many things she could express with short sentences, Michelle talked to Yoo Hye-Sook while eating a sandwich.
He listened to Kim Mi-Young and Eun So-Yeon talk to each other earlier today. This evening, he did the same to Yoo Hye-Sook and Michelle.
“The clothes in Dongdaemun are really nice,” Michelle commented.
“I’ve heard people say that, but I also heard that you can get scammed if you go there without knowing how things work.”
“Let’s buy the company’s clothes sponsored by the magazine company.”
“Would there be clothes that fit me, Michelle?”
“Of course, mother.”
From the very beginning, it felt as if this situation was becoming more and more complicated. Kim Mi-Young and Eun So-Yeon had exchanged numbers, and now Yoo Hye-Sook and Michelle were doing the same.
As Kang Chan sighed with a profound expression, Kang Dae-Kyung came inside.
When Kang Chan smelled the yangnyeom chicken[2], he made up his mind to get discharged tomorrow no matter what.
***
The three stayed with Kang Chan until 8 pm. When the nurse injected him with medication, they stood up and left.
Left alone, he went to the counter where the nurses were to get digestive medicine, but as soon as he reached it, he flinched. The nurses offered him bossam, which they were enjoying.
Kang Chan got startled, but he didn’t forget to ask them for digestive medicine. As soon as he was given some, he visited Seok Kang-Ho to avoid the smell of food.
Having taken digestive medicine, Kang Chan thought he would feel much better if he smoked a cigarette.
Rattle.
Kang Chan opened the door to Seok Kang-Ho’s room only to stop in his tracks for a moment.
Sitting together, Kim Tae-Jin, Kim Hyung-Jung, and Seok Kang-Ho greeted Kang Chan. They were eating jokbal[3] and bossam.
“You weren’t answering your phone, so I decided to come here unannounced. Welcome. I gave plenty of food to the nurses’ office and the security office, and I also brought plenty of food for you. Why do you look so upset? Is it because we ate first? We tried to wait for you and made sure not to even open your food,” Kim Tae-Jin explained.
“This one’s yours. Come eat quickly,” Seok Kang-Ho added.
Kang Chan almost kicked the table, but he suppressed the urge with a superhuman will. Instead, he avoided them by going to another room for a bit.
“Whoo.”
Kang Chan lit up and smoked a cigarette. Thinking that Kang Dae-Kyung or Yoo Hye-Sook wasn’t going to come and see him made his stomach feel a little comfortable.
1. Samgye-tang or ginseng chicken soup is a Korean traditional soup meant for health. ☜
2. Yangnyeom chicken is fried chicken that’s seasoned with sweet and spicy sauce ☜
3. Jokbal is a Korean dish that consists of pig's trotters cooked with soy sauce and spices ☜